


The Day Unfolding

by bluflamingo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Multi, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 12:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: Eight years after SHIELD collapsed, Clint decides to retire. For real, this time.





	The Day Unfolding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rivulet027](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/gifts).



Ever since the collapse of SHIELD, Clint's said at least once a year that he's definitely retiring, for real this time, no take-backs. After eight years, it's more of a catchphrase than anything else.

Until Clint lets himself into the apartment he and Sam share, after two weeks on a mission in Sorrento, flops onto the couch and says, "I'm done. Really, this time."

Sam spent those two weeks, and the two before Clint left, on a tour of high schools and youth groups with Wanda, Rhodey and Steve, promoting the Avengers scholarship fund for kids who can't afford college otherwise. He's been looking forward to Clint coming home since he heard from Natasha that they were wrapping things up two days ago, but he wasn't actually expecting him for another day at least.

Clint's already leaning into him, so Sam puts an arm around him, leans in and kisses the top of his head. He smells faintly of shampoo, and he's in the jeans and hoodie that Sam knows he keeps at the Tower for post debrief changes. Aside from how he didn't call Sam or Bucky to come get him, this could be any other post mission early evening, and Sam's almost tempted to give his usual teasing response to Clint saying he's quitting.

But Clint's boneless against him, not making eye contact, not touching or reaching for a kiss, just there, like he ran out of energy. "Something happen?"

Clint shrugs, but leans into it when Sam runs his fingers through his hair. Sam wishes, a little, that they could have coordinated better – Bucky's not due home from Wakanda for another couple of days, but they always fit better when the three of them are together.

"I'm just done," Clint says quietly. "It's –" He shrugs, like the words aren't there. Not that Sam really needs them – he can read it in the lines of Clint's body, how he's tired, worn out. How he feels old, for real, not just when Bucky and Steve are teasing him about whether he's the oldest or they are. 

"You know you don't have to keep doing it, when you don't want to any more," Sam says, just as quietly. It's late September, the nights drawing in enough that the room is getting dim without a lamp on, and he doesn't want to disturb the stillness settling around them. "It's a job, not a life sentence."

Clint nods, and Sam's sure his eyes are closed. He sounds half-sleep when he says, "Thank you," like there was ever any chance that Sam would be something other than supportive.

*

"If you're retiring for real," Bucky says when he's back from his bi-annual research party with Shuri in Wakanda, "Then we can talk about the farm again."

"Ugh," Sam says. They're in Clint and Sam's apartment, because Bucky officially lives at the Tower and semi-officially lives with Steve in his Brooklyn apartment, but really spends more nights at Clint and Sam's than anywhere. He says it's because of Lucky; Sam thinks it's more about how the three of them can slump together on the stupidly long couch with no-one trying to insist they get up and do something productive. "I'm a city boy. We're all city boys."

"Eh." Clint digs one hand out from between his and Bucky's bodies, where they're probably holding hands, and wiggles it side to side. "I grew up in the circus. Bucky raised goats in Wakanda."

"For eight months, nearly a decade ago."

Bucky elbows Sam sharply for that one, though thankfully not with his bionic arm. "I was an awesome goat farmer, thank you very much."

"Fine," Sam huffs. "I'm a city boy, even if you two aren't. I'm not moving to live on a farm."

Bucky and Clint both go very still, and Sam can feel them not looking at each other. He has to fight down a sigh – it's been so long, but they're still, both of them, half-convinced that this is all temporary. That when it gets inconvenient, Sam's going to find someone else – someone easier, someone closer, someone who's just one that he can take home to meet his parents, even though Sam's folks have met Bucky and Clint so many times he's lost count and always ask about them when Sam calls home.

He knows it's because they're both messed up, that it's not about him, but still – some days he wonders just what he'd give up in exchange for them both to feel secure, to not be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"If you really wanted to move out of the city and start a farm, I would live on a farm with you," he says patiently. Bucky relaxes a little at that. Clint doesn't, but that's normal for them; Clint needs time to convince himself things are true in a way that Bucky doesn't. 

"It'd be a hassle to get back into the city for missions," Bucky says. "And you'd never survive that far away from a good bagel place."

"That's true." Sam can't hug Clint with Bucky in the middle, but he reaches over and pets Clint's hair until he shivers a little and tips back into the contact. "But I bet we could come up with something."

*

In the end, it's Steve who comes up with something. Clint has to go to the Tower to officially terminate his status as an Avenger, and of course most of the other Avengers turn up for it, and of course that turns into an impromptu party in the courtyard garden that Banner started and Wanda and Scott keep going. 

"Reminds me of the community plot in the middle of our block," Steve says, watching Wanda and Cassie collecting blackberries. "Remember, Buck, your Ma planted potatoes every year?"

Bucky's expression goes hazy for a second before he shakes his head. It took years for him to stop apologizing for memories he'd lost, even after Steve stopped flinching at it, but it's almost become normal for the two of them to just share a wistful smile when Bucky admits to not remembering something.

"Becca begged for chickens practically the moment she knew what one was," Steve adds, smiling a little. "And, God, rabbits, it was always rabbits."

Clint perks up a little from where he's been leaning into Sam and not really talking to anyone. "You're not persuading me that you guys had, what, a tiny farm in the middle of the city."

"Not a farm, just a garden – it was just a patch of land between two blocks, it's amazing anything grew there." Steve shrugs, eyes crinkling a little in amusement at Clint's expression, simultaneously disbelieving and oddly hopeful. "Most streets had them, I think they started during the first world war, and then some people kept them up."

"Is that still a thing?" Sam asks. Not that he needs to – Bucky's already got his phone out and is tapping away, and Clint's tipping sideways to sprawl on Bucky and read over his shoulder. 

"What did I say?" Steve asks, amused, as Bucky and Clint poke at Bucky's phone and mutter at each other in Russian, the way they do when Bucky gets excited about something and forgets that English is supposed to be his main language. It used to be heart-breaking – still is, if Sam lets himself think about it too much – but Clint's never made a big deal of it, just switched languages as easily as Natasha does, until it barely seemed weird at all.

"I'm not totally sure," Sam admits. "But I'm pretty sure you just added goats to our immediate futures."

*

Sam points out that Lucky and rabbits is a terrible combination. Clint draws up plans for double wall rabbit runs.

Sam talks about chickens and city foxes. Bucky emails Shuri and the two of them design a light sensitive security wall that automatically drops into place when the sun starts to go down.

Sam asks what they're going to do with two acres' worth of fruit and vegetables, then answers his own question by researching soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

Sam doesn't say anything about the goats; he values his sex-life too much for that.

The pile of books next to his and Clint's bed slowly gets overtaken by gardening books, a few more migrating into the living room every time Bucky comes by. Steve peppers Sam with questions about the whole enterprise every time he's at the tower, and even Natasha agrees to go with Clint in the spring to pick out the chicks who are going to start off the chicken brood, though she lets Cassie name them.

"You might as well accept it," Bucky says one afternoon, a month or so since Clint retired for real, when Sam comes home to find the two of them with their heads in books about urban bee-keeping. "You fell for a couple of farmers after all."

Sam shrugs and snuggles his way in between them. "At least I don't have to move to the countryside."

*

Sam's on his way home from a three day mission in Alaska when he realizes that, for all the trips he's taken since Clint retired a few months ago, Bucky hasn't been out at all.

He got a text from Clint earlier, saying that he and Wanda were taking Lucky to Central Park for the day, but he's not particularly surprised to let himself into the apartment and find Bucky curled in the corner of the couch, reading about permaculture on Sam's tablet.

"Did you retire too and I never noticed?" he asks, leaning down to drop a kiss on Bucky's head on his way into the kitchen. "Tea?"

"No, and yes please." Bucky comes up behind Sam and nuzzles at his neck a little, stubble against skin making Sam shiver a little. "I think we're going to have a camomile lawn."

"Sounds good," Sam says, having learned over the last few weeks that it's best not to ask questions until he's heard about something at least twice – Clint and Bucky have a lot of ideas for their urban farm, and nowhere near enough room to implement all of them.

He waits until they're back on the couch with steaming mugs of tea before he asks, "Are you thinking about retirement?"

"No," Bucky says, but slowly. He doesn't say anything for a while, just sips at his tea while Sam can practically hear him thinking. "Not all the way, like Clint. Not yet, anyway." He shifts a little, gesturing at the dark tablet. "This is fun though."

"You're reading about garden mulch," Sam says, kissing Bucky's cheek so he knows Sam's only teasing.

*

The farm project grows in scope all the way up to Christmas, and then the new year rolls in and Clint gets serious about how it's going to work, up to and including a whiteboard in the corner of the living room with a plan of the site.

Sam really, really doesn't mean to get involved – he's happy that it's making Clint and Bucky happy, but he's not a farming guy. It's just that Bucky doodles little animals in the livestock spaces, and Clint's left-handed scribbling leaves smudges all over the plans, and Sam keeps finding himself stood in front of the board, looking for what's new and smiling at the increasingly ridiculous names Cassie promises she's going to give to the chickens. 

He's standing there one evening, home early from hanging out with Steve. He's home alone, Bucky at the ballet with Natasha, Clint at the Tower with Wanda, who always struggles as winter drags on into February. Bucky's drawn four tiny goats, piled together and napping, and Clint's added a list of trees for the tiny orchard corner. 

And Sam thinks about being a kid, the two years his grandma lived with them after his grandpa died, how she'd make apple and plum cobbler every Sunday after church. He's heard more than one dispute over whether it's worth trying to grow plums in a New York farm garden, so many that Bucky and Clint have switched sides with each other at least twice. 

He snags the purple marker that Clint insists he didn't buy because it matches his old circus costume, and neatly writes, at the bottom of the list, _purple Stanley plums._

There'll be no backing out of getting involved now.

Heading to bed, knowing he'll wake up with Clint and Bucky curled in next to him, Sam finds that he's actually pretty okay with that.


End file.
